Beginner Dunnottar Castle

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Went out one evening last week to try and get some shots of this old, ruined castle near where I live under the stars. Stellarium showed that the MW is in the night sky to the east and should be visible from around 0030 at the moment. Also practiced doing star stacking with Sequator. Unfortunately I think there's just too much light pollution there as that spot is quite close to the town and not that far from the city of Aberdeen. Had to process this quite a lot to get some contrast in the sky and try not to make the castle look overexposed for the overall scene.

A question while I'm here - does anyone use the Nisi Natural Night filter for night sky stuff, and does it do an effective job of filtering out light pollution?

print2 by niallporter1, on Flickr
 
No idea about the filters but I can't imagine there is any real substitute for a proper dark sky, anything must be voodoo if it actually worked.

Also posting because I want to know and Dunnottar is one of my favourite castles!

Not sure if this helps from a light pollution standpoint (http://darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html):

upload_2018-5-25_16-45-6.png
 
Difficult conditions but the image is a cracker, well done (y)
 
Thanks folks - must admit I only see the bits I wish I'd done better but I've got a lot of positive feedback about it and in fact I've even sold my first print!

Yeah I know DarkSiteFinder and was aware that there might be quite a bit of light pollution there. I got this one last year a bit further inland from there, at the top of the Cairn o Mount road, far less blue light in the sky:

DSC_0011_stitch by niallporter1, on Flickr

I guess I shouldn't complain too much, I only need to drive about an hour to get out into dark sky areas from here, some folks have to drive for hours! I guess the interest in the filter was to improve the chances of getting, or the quality of, a shot with a landmark like the castle when it's located in a bad area for light pollution.
 
Nice shot. Looking at that location on the dark skies map and I would think you're ok, if you can get the MW early in the night, the location itself is not too light polluted and you are looking south into dark skies, as long as you don't swing too far west. PP wise it looks a little blue but it's still a nice. I love the second shot. A great example of what you can get even looking towards city lights!
 
Thanks Alan :) That was shot looking almost due East, directly out to sea - beyond the castle is about 430 miles of the North Sea and then eventually the Denmark Coast. I'd not expected there to be much light pollution at all given I was looking pretty much away from the light but there's a town just a little further North along the coast from the spot I was standing so I guess that lit the castle a bit but also lit up the air. I'm sure I'll be back to try again.

The second shot was taken last year I think in late August/early September so the sunset was a lot earlier and shot was from a location in a dark green zone on Dark Site Finder. The town lights you can see are from a much smaller town than the one near the castle and the camera was facing almost due south. It's amazing how much difference the seasonal day/night cycles, the level of ambient light and the proximity to dense light sources makes.

Definitely got the appetite for more of this stuff, have some other locations in mind too.
 
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